Download or read book Action Contemplation and Happiness written by C. D. C. Reeve and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of practical wisdom is one of Aristotle's greatest inventions. It has inspired philosophers as diverse as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Thompson, and John McDowell. Now a leading scholar of ancient philosophy offers a challenge to received accounts of practical wisdom by situating it in the larger context of Aristotle's views on knowledge and reality. That happiness is the end pursued by practical wisdom is commonly agreed. What is disputed is whether happiness is to be found in the practical life of political action, in which we exhibit courage, temperance, and other virtues of character, or in the contemplative life, where theoretical wisdom is the essential virtue. C. D. C. Reeve argues that the dichotomy is bogus, that these lives are in fact parts of a single life, which is the best human one. In support of this view, he develops innovative accounts of many of the central notions in Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology, including matter and form, scientific knowledge, dialectic, educatedness, perception, understanding, political science, practical truth, deliberation, and deliberate choice. These accounts are based directly on freshly translated passages from many of Aristotle's writings. Action, Contemplation, and Happiness is an accessible essay not just on practical wisdom but on Aristotle's philosophy as a whole.

Download or read book Action Contemplation and Happiness written by C. D. C. Reeve and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of practical wisdom is one of Aristotle’s greatest inventions. It has inspired philosophers as diverse as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Thompson, and John McDowell. Now a leading scholar of ancient philosophy offers a challenge to received accounts of practical wisdom by situating it in the larger context of Aristotle’s views on knowledge and reality. That happiness is the end pursued by practical wisdom is commonly agreed. What is disputed is whether happiness is to be found in the practical life of political action, in which we exhibit courage, temperance, and other virtues of character, or in the contemplative life, where theoretical wisdom is the essential virtue. C. D. C. Reeve argues that the dichotomy is bogus, that these lives are in fact parts of a single life, which is the best human one. In support of this view, he develops innovative accounts of many of the central notions in Aristotle’s metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology, including matter and form, scientific knowledge, dialectic, educatedness, perception, understanding, political science, practical truth, deliberation, and deliberate choice. These accounts are based directly on freshly translated passages from many of Aristotle’s writings. Action, Contemplation, and Happiness is an accessible essay not just on practical wisdom but on Aristotle’s philosophy as a whole.

Download or read book Happy Lives and the Highest Good written by Gabriel Richardson Lear and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy.

Download or read book Happiness in Action and Contemplation in Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics written by Randy Michael Herring and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Action and Contemplation written by Robert C. Bartlett and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1999-08-27 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: European and North American scholars explore the political philosophy of Aristotle, with particular attention to questions arising from the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics.

Download or read book Happiness and Contemplation written by Josef Pieper and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The ultimate of human happiness is to be found in contemplation". In offering this proposition of Thomas Aquinas to our thought, Josef Pieper uses traditional wisdom in order to throw light on present-day reality and present-day psychological problems. What, in fact, does one pursue in pursuing happiness? What, in the consensus of the wisdom of the early Greeks, of Plato and Aristotle, of the New Testament, of Augustine and Aquinas, is that condition of perfect bliss toward which all life and effort tend by nature? In this profound and illuminating inquiry, Pieper considers the nature of contemplation, and the meaning and goal of life.

Download or read book In Pursuit of the Good written by Eric Salem and published by Paul Dry Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is friendship? What is the best life? How does one decide? Try Salem on Aristotle.

Download or read book Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics written by Aristotle and published by Bryn Mawr Commentaries, Incorporated. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bryn Mawr Commentaries provide clear, concise, accurate, and consistent support for students making the transition from introductory and intermediate texts to the direct experience of ancient Greek and Latin literature. They assume that the student will know the basics of grammar and vocabulary and then provide the specific grammatical and lexical notes that a student requires to begin the task of interpretation. Hackett Publishing Company is the exclusive distributor of the Bryn Mawr Commentaries in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

Download or read book Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation written by Matthew D. Walker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an original, up-to-date, and systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good.

Download or read book Nicomachean Ethics written by Aristotle and published by SDE Classics. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Human Condition written by Thomas Keating and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally a Wit Lecture by one of today's key spiritual writers, this is a reflection on contemplative prayer, the search for happiness, and our need to explore the inner world. The search for God, Keating says, is also the search for ourselves, but our self-consciousness gets in the way. He takes the unique angle of the contemplative journey as "divine therapy" for the illness of the human condition, a method for opening up to our own wounded unconscious. As we move into a global culture, he says, this process of letting go of attachments and of self-centeredness is more important than ever. A work of beauty and clarity, The Human Condition - - draws from a wide range of classic and modern spiritual sources, as well as from solid common sense - explains how God is the only true security and how divine love is the full affirmation of who we are - shows how even a life of action needs contemplation and the practice of the presence of God

Download or read book Action Versus Contemplation written by Jennifer Summit and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654. But then there’s Walt Whitman, in 1856: “Whoever you are, come forth! Or man or woman come forth! / You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house.” It is truly an ancient debate: Is it better to be active or contemplative? To do or to think? To make an impact, or to understand the world more deeply? Aristotle argued for contemplation as the highest state of human flourishing. But it was through action that his student Alexander the Great conquered the known world. Which should we aim at? Centuries later, this argument underlies a surprising number of the questions we face in contemporary life. Should students study the humanities, or train for a job? Should adults work for money or for meaning? And in tumultuous times, should any of us sit on the sidelines, pondering great books, or throw ourselves into protests and petition drives? With Action versus Contemplation, Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule address the question in a refreshingly unexpected way: by refusing to take sides. Rather, they argue for a rethinking of the very opposition. The active and the contemplative can—and should—be vibrantly alive in each of us, fused rather than sundered. Writing in a personable, accessible style, Summit and Vermeule guide readers through the long history of this debate from Plato to Pixar, drawing compelling connections to the questions and problems of today. Rather than playing one against the other, they argue, we can discover how the two can nourish, invigorate, and give meaning to each other, as they have for the many writers, artists, and thinkers, past and present, whose examples give the book its rich, lively texture of interplay and reference. This is not a self-help book. It won’t give you instructions on how to live your life. Instead, it will do something better: it will remind you of the richness of a life that embraces action and contemplation, company and solitude, living in the moment and planning for the future. Which is better? Readers of this book will discover the answer: both.

Download or read book Happiness as Actuality in Nicomachean Ethics written by Sorin Sabou and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study about the meaning of happiness (εὐδαιμονία) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (EN). It is argued that εὐδαιμονία in EN means actuality, and it has to be interpreted through the lenses of two metaphors used by Aristotle in EN 1.7 1098a21 and 10.6 1176a30: the “perimeter of good” and the “imprint of happiness.” To explain the meaning of happiness Aristotle first has to delineate the “perimeter of good” of human beings, and he does that with the help of two criteria: the final end [τέλος] and the function of humanity [ἔργον ἀνθρώπου]. These two criteria are metaphysical concepts which describe the “good” as the final metaphysical aim of every person, and the best every person can be. This metaphysical teleological aim is the “actuality of the soul” according with excellence. This is the “perimeter” within which Aristotle enquires about εὐδαιμονία—the good of humans.

Download or read book Confronting Aristotle s Ethics written by Eugene Garver and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the good life? Posing this question today would likely elicit very different answers. Some might say that the good life means doing good - improving one's community and the lives of others. Others might respond that it means doing well - cultivating one's own abilities in a meaningful way. But for Aristotle these two distinct ideas - doi...

Download or read book Hammer and Fire written by Raphael Simon and published by Zaccheus Press. This book was released on 2004-11 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a way to happiness that is meant for all, but the path is known by few. It is a tradition that has existed in Judeo-Christianity from the beginning, founded on the Scriptures, and nurtured by the Church. It is the way of prayer and contemplation, and its goal is to become fully human and alive, integrated and mature, through a transforming union with Jesus Christ through which we become truly ourselves. This book is about that transforming union--God's plan for our happiness.

Download or read book Beyond Happiness written by Anthony Seldon and published by Yellow Kite. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Britain's best-known headmaster, Sir Anthony famously introduced happiness, or well-being, lessons at his school, Wellington College. In 2011, he co-founded Action for Happiness, a body to raise awareness of the discovery of happiness and reduction of depression, whose influence is growing rapidly in Britain and across the world. In this book Anthony Seldon distinguishes between pleasure, happiness and joy, and offers an original 8-step approach on how to make our lives far more meaningful and rewarding. The pursuit of happiness can all too easily become a trap which seduces us into thinking there is no more to life than being happy. In fact, the author is highly critical of 'positive psychology' and other dominant schools of thought. In fact, we need to reach beyond this if we are to access the deepest levels of human experience open to us, and find our own unique path in life. The author offers a further 5 steps, which point the way to accessing these deeper levels of experience, which alone result in the joyful life which is our birthright. Paradoxically, as this book demonstrates, stepping off the happiness treadmill will ultimately make for a happier and more fulfilled life. It is time to go beyond happiness.

Download or read book Commentary on Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics written by Saint Thomas (Aquinas) and published by St. Augustine's Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 718 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fine editions of the Aristotelian Commentary Series make available long out-of-print commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle. Each volume has the full text of Aristotle with Bekker numbers, followed by the commentary of St. Thomas, cross-referenced using an easily accessible mode of referring to Aristotle in the Commentary. Each volume is beautifully printed and bound using the finest materials. All copies are printed on acid-free paper and Smyth sewn. They will last.